


White Lies

by GothamsGirl



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, F/M, Origin Story, This is weird but I couldn't not write it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8162416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamsGirl/pseuds/GothamsGirl
Summary: Harleen greets him with a smile and a hello, and she knows he can see through her false bleached feathers like an open book even if all he does is stare and stare and then laugh. The guards all stiffen at the noise but Harleen herself relaxes, starts asking him about his childhood.
That's her mistake.





	

Harleen was born with black wings.

Its a whispered Quinzel family secret, their first born daughter sprouting dark raven feathers when she was only a year old. Her mother of course hid them, from the church, from friends.

Her older brother, Danny (his are a light tan color with blue highlights, everyone told her parents they made a beautiful boy), tells her vaguely stories of her toddling around the house with them bound tigtly until her mother figured out how to bleach the feathers a shocking, bleached white.

Because, her father's words echo in her mind, Black wings are evil, Harleen. They are very bad and we must never tell anyone, not even grandma, that you have them.

To some its the sign of the devil, others its a curse, people just can't accept it.

..

She remembers being 16 and her mother slathering her wings with the thick bleaching cream after yet another molting season. Every year she hopes they grow in brown, white, tan like Danny's, even the ugly ginger color the girl next door has. Anything but black.

Her mom, poor Mrs. Quinzel asks, "Do you have a date for homecoming yet dear?" as she combs through the now soft white feathers, letting her daughter stretch the muscles in them after two hours of being still.

"Yes," Harleen answers, "Every boy asked me. Because the white." They chase after her like dogs after a bone, the false pristine color lures them like candy to a child. It's as rare as black but the opposite meaning. Pure, kind, smart, all things Harley has been faking her whole life.

"Shush now," Her mother scolds, handing Harleen a mirror to look at the cover up job. Hiding that part of her like a dirty secret. "You're a beautiful young lady, your wings don't define you."

Until they do.

She loses her virginity in college, to a boy named Chad that vapes and drinks too much redbull. She doesn't care for him very much, but he bought her dinner and seems like a nice guy beneath all the douche behavior.

It hurts and she cries after. Chad, or now that's she's thinking was it Brad? Either way he tries to console her by rubbing her feathers but gasps when he runs his hand through, exposing the black underlayer.

She tries to stop him from leaving but is ultimately left alone on her bed, Chad long gone from her dorm room.

Bleaching ends up failing, the older she gets the thicker they become, refusing to take the stain and her mother cries for her.

Harley starts working at Arkham soon after graduating from Gotham University. Maybe it was her interest in extreme personalities, her need for adventure in a life she'd been hiding her true self. Maybe its because 90% of the criminally insane population has black wings.

..

She meets Joker on her second day. March 11th, at exactly noon.

Harleen greets him with a smile and a hello, and she knows he can see through her false bleached feathers like an open book even if all he does is stare and stare and then laugh. The guards all stiffen at the noise but Harleen herself relaxes, starts asking him about his childhood.

That's her mistake.

If you asked her now, she'd pinpoint this moment as the second her life changed, for the better or worst? Depends on which of her personalities is talking.

Joker spins heartbreaking stories ( She knows that they were not completely true, but her heart still aches by the punchline) about an abusive father, mother that didn't love him because of his obsidian wings, spreading them as much as the chains shackling them together will allow. Harleen swoons when she sees them, feels her own twitch at the sight.

He tells her about a tragic childhood, dad that didn't want an outcast son. Mother that wanted to put him up for adoption but nobody would take him. J leans in toward her and speaks lowly, "Do you want to know why I killed them?"

Harleen stares at his 'damaged' tattoo, the dark ink contrasted against his white skin, "Yes Mister J.".

"I was 15, mommy held me down when dear old dad," He smiles at her then, the kind that should make her wet herself but only brings a totally different reaction from her lower half, "tried to cut them off. So I threw them both off, and finally put smiles on their miserable faces."

..

She brings him a kitten.

He asks for a machine gun.

She brings that, too.

Harleen lay on the cold metal table, tears brimming on her lashes as he looms above her like an angel, like a devil with terrifying electro therapy tools.

"I can take it." She tells herself mostly, feels the electricity course through her veins like adrenaline, her wings trapped between her and the table, teeth clamping down on his leather belt.

..

"Would you die for me?"

"Yes."

"Would you live for me?"

"Yes, Mistah J." Harleen looks down at the bubbling chemicals below, the thick substance warm, making the warehouse smell awful.

Joker shoves her off and watches, waits for her to flap those pretty, pretty false white feathers and catch herself mid air, but she doesn't even try.

He pulls her out of them and her clothes are dissolved, her wings are raven black so much like his it makes him crackle like a hyena as she wakes, blue eyes taking him in and then they share a kiss born of mad love.

..

The Batman, the Dark Knight. Black wings adorned with armor as he crouches on the rooftops of Gotham.

Below him The Joker and Harley Quinn are using some old homeless man as a punching bag. Harley brings her bat across his knees, hard, just as Bruce lands next to them.

"Hello dear Batsy," J greets, "The feathers are looking lovely today, using a new conditioner?"

Harley clings to J's side like glue, her blue and pink pigtails matching the highlights in her wings. "No matter what he does Puddin', they still gonna be black like us."

"I'm nothing like you." Bruce growls, launches a batarang at the clown's green head just as they take off, running down the alley to a parked purple Lamborghini.

Their laughter lights up the streets as they speed away from the batmobile, windows open and the wind whipping her hair around.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't even spell check this.


End file.
